Sticks and Stones
by OrlithNightfire
Summary: They say sticks and stones my break my bones, but words will never hurt me. everyone knows thats a lie. someone Makes rose remember. 9thDocRoseJack


KITG: ok, this all spawned from a song. Not going to tell you which song. As that would ruin the surprise. But it should make you laugh. Now I'm running with the Idea that Rose has a good communication with the Tardis, I would say it after POTW, but I love Chris too much. So no regen. Oh and Jacks there too.

Disclaimer: I OWN DOCTOR WHO! Gets hit by lawyers sorry, sorry. Just don't hit me with the Doctor's mallet again. Poor Tardis, I know how she feels now. I Don't, (contry what my mind believes) own Doctor who. BBC owns it, they are great people, and will bring us loads more Doctor who…….WON'T YOU! Glares at BBC

Sticks and Stones, but words will always hurt me 

They rushed into the Tardis full pelt, the muck of the planet still sticking to their soppy forms. Red hair plastered around her face Rose turned to her fellow escapees of Danger. Cursing that one had short black hair, and the other just having black hair in general. The one man, and one alien were doubled over panting. They both looked totally shattered, Rose still felt elated, still being driven by her adrenalin high. At that moment Jack decided to look up, and being the man that he was….burst out laughing.

"Rose, you've got red hair" Rose glared at him.

"You don't say, never would have noticed"

"Looks more pink to me" The Doctor decided to add, his manic grin on his face. But she could see the tiredness behind his eyes. It was half hearted. She tried to remember when she had seen him last go to bed. And couldn't. But not letting him get away with that remark, threw her wet scarf at him. The red rain that had died her hair pink now soaking the scarf. It hit the Doctor with a wet squeltch

"Oi!" Jack laughed at this, only to get the scarf passed to him. The Doctor moved to the Tardis console, flicking switches, pulling leavers, and pumping he bicycle pump got the Tardis underway. The Green/blue time rotor rose and fell in perfect rhythm, like a beating heart. She looked back to her two best friends. They needed bed.

"Right, come on you two" she grabbed each of their arms and started to drag them down the Tardis corridors. She stopped outside Jacks room

"Rosie, if you wanted us three in my bed, all you had to do is ask" all Rose did was to roll her eyes and push him through the door. Next she dragged the Doctor to his.

"Right, in you go. Have a shower and sleep"

"But the Tardis…"

"Agrees with me that you both need sleep, and will lock you in your rooms until you do sleep." The last bit was shouted over the corridor for Jacks benefit.

"Bullies" came a muffled response from Jacks closed door.

"Now in you go Doctor." She pushed him in, but not before taking the Sonic screwdriver out of his pocket, he was so tired he didn't even notice. There was a resounding click as the Tardis locked his door, knowing what he was like.

"Oh come on, like that's gonna stop me" there was silence as Rose imagined him checking his pocket for his screwdriver. Then a defeated voice came through the door. "Rose, you have my sonic screwdriver don't you?"

"Yep" there came a sigh

"Night Rose"

Rose had gone to her Room, showered and changed. She had decided to finish what the Doctor had stated earlier that day. Some of the lights that surrounded the console room had gone on the blink, and just like fairy lights. When one went out…they all did. So she found herself in the console room, up a ladder. Changing each bulb. She carefully unscrewed the glass covering. She talked to the Tardis as she did so, she didn't need to. The Tardis could read her mind. But it was so quiet without those two around. So she talked to the ancient time craft.

"Tardis, turn this bank off please" she waited, and got a beep. So she carefully unscrewed the bulb and placed another one in. replacing the glass cover. "Ok try it now." There was a snap of electricity and that entire bank came on. She continued on, but the quiet was really grating on her. She knew the Tardis had a radio in her. So she might as well.

"Tardis, can you put some music on?" the Tardis decided to put music it thought would fit Rose. So Rose found herself humming, then singing along to "Desert Rose" by sting. She continued fixing. Song after song followed, but Rose realized it was all her. So when the last light had been replaced and all banks lit, she placed the box on the ground. She felt the Tardis's happiness that all her lights were functioning. Rose turned to the console, picking up the tools the Doctor had left randomly laying around. She moved to his toolbox to place them back, as she did so she spoke to the ship once more

"Come on old girl, you choose something. Something that fits you" The Tardis seemed to think a moment. But when the song came one. Rose was in a fit of giggles.

_I'm blue da ba dee_

_I've got a blue house with a blue window,_

Rose started to dance round the room, laughing as the lights began to flash on and off, oscillating to the music. She didn't see Jack watching, she just continued to dance in the happy feeling washing over here from the Tardis. The ship was her other best friend. Always ready, knowing when she needed comfort, placing hot chocolate on her bedside table when she was sad. She twirled and giggled. The Tardis dancing with her.

The Doctor had been having such a nice sleep, when he was interrupted by something terrifying. He sat bolt upright, listening to the sound. Yep no mistake. He jumped to his feet, fully alert. He marched through the door and down the corridor. He could see Jack watching something in the Console room. But the Doctor was having none of it.

"Rose Tyler!" he shouted as he entered. She stopped dead looking at him as if he had grown another head. "What the name of mercy is that doing on?"

"What?" Rose was totally confused. What was he on about?

"That" he pointed to the Radio, the last bar of the song dying away.

"Hey don't look at me. The Tardis chose that one" Rose replied, holding up her hand in defense.

"My Tardis would never play cheesy Pop" he got an indignant beep from the console, and annoyance streamed from the Tardis telepathicly "You mean you did choose it?" he got a beep in response. "But you don't have a blue corvette and all the rubbish"

To say the Doctor was quite surprised when a small toy blue corvette dropped on his head was an understatement. Rose held in her laugh as he rubbed his head. Jack though didn't, he leaned against the doorframe nearly crying.

"Oh this is priceless, the ship liking Eiffel 65" a squirt of oil launched in Jacks direction.

"Hey I just cleaned there. Right you two out"

"But it's my Tardis" the Doctor whined back.

"Don't care, you blokes. Go on out. Let me finish in piece. The Tardis and me were having fun till you turned up. Go on out. Go and get a cup of tea or something" she shoved the both out the room shutting the door after them. Just as the door closed he heard the music start up again. And with it the ring tone of Rose's mobile. "Probably her mum" he thought. He turned with Jack from the door, both heading to the kitchen.

Rose dug in the pocket of her pink jacket as her phone rang; looking at the screen she saw the name "Mum"

"Hi mum" but it wasn't her mum who replied.

"Hello Rose" she knew that voice. It was her Uncle Bill; strange he would be calling her. Bill was a good man, but very stuck in his ways and very opinionated. He was fiercely protective of Jackie, and of Rose. But his voice was cold.

"Oh hi Uncle Bill, is everything ok? Is mum ok?"

"Do you actually care?" he asked, voice still neutral.

"Of course I car, she's me mum."

"She's fine, well if you count fine crying over you. Blabbering something about you'd be back in ten seconds" his voice was like a knife-edge.

"How long it been?"

"My god you are unbelievable. You don't know how long you have been gone? 3 months. You going to disappear for a year like last time. Cause if you are don't bother coming back"

"What you mean" Rose asked in a small voice, she couldn't believe this. The Uncle that had bought her the red bicycle for Christmas. The uncle that was so kind to her. Was telling her never to come home.

"Oh Rose, I so thought you were going to be better than that no good father of yours…"

"Don't talk about my dad like that, he was a great man," Rose shouted down the phone fury. How dare he say that about her dad, her dad that had sacrificed his life to save the world.

"Your father had one useless idea after another. You have no idea about him. Only the stories Jackie told you to make him seem worthwhile. Now Rose where are you?" he was asking like he was coming to pick her up or something. Like an errant child.

"Traveling"

"Traveling?"

"Yeah traveling"

"Well you can just stay "traveling" he mimicked it in Rose's voice, "Your mum can get on with her life without you. All you do Rose Tyler is hurt people, your mum. That boy Mickey. You are a worthless human being. Not worth the paper your birth certificate is printed on. Let your mother have a good life. Without an ungrateful, spiteful child like you" there was the dull lifeless tone as the phone went dead. Rose just stood there, no sound. The Tardis had stopped playing music, trying to wrap Rose in warmth. But she rebelled against it. Shoving the Tardis from her mind as tears fell down her face. She wrenched the door open and fled into the depths of the Tardis. Jack and the Doctor didn't see her past the kitchen; too busy arguing over music choices. They did hear when she dropped her phone, she didn't stop just ran blindly, trying to find a refuge from this sea of desolation within her.

Jack and the Doctor practically jumped a mile at the sound of something dropping to the floor outside the kitchen.

"Rose? You finish cleaning and dropped ya mop?" Jack asked, making even the word mop sound cheeky, the Doctor rolled his eyes. Expecting the mentioned mop to shortly come flying at Jack. But there came nothing. The Doctor rose from his chair at the metallic red kitchen table and walked to the door. He looked both ways, but saw nothing. It wasn't till he looked down that he saw her phone. It had cracked, pieces of the plastic covering littering the floor. He scowled. Stupid ape, and after he did his special jiggery pokery on it. But then a nagging feeling began to grow. Rose wouldn't just drop it and leave it lying there.

"Rose?"

"Something up?" jack asked coming to stand at the door with him

"Don't know" he started to walk from the room towards the console room. As he did so he felt a feeling of sadness, then anger, the worry. It took him a moment to realize it came from the Tardis. Normally he would have realized sooner. But these emotions weren't being directed at him. He walked up to the monitor mounted in the console. Jack walked in behind him a whistled

"Wow, Rose did a good job. She even did all the bulbs for you" The Doctor looked up, noticing for the first time that all the lights were working, she had placed all his tools back in the box, even by the looks of it polished the console. The Tardis even seemed to preen herself. Loving the fact that the console room was clean. It must have taken her ages. He looked at his watch for the first time since he went to bed. He had been talking to Jack for about 20 minutes in the Kitchen, so that meant he had been asleep 7 hours. He blinked. That was a lot for a Time lord.

"Yeah, she did. But where is she?" he looked to he monitor as a blinking symbol caught his eye. "What you trying to tell me girl?" he pressed the button.

"Hi Mum" seems the Tardis recorded her phone call; he was about to stop it when he heard a voice he didn't know.

"Hello Rose"

Rose ran and ran, not seeing anything. Her lungs burned, the tiredness that had eluded her before now screamed through every cell in her body. Tears made their way un-heeded down her face. She found herself running through the large garden, through brush and bramble, feeling them cut at her, but not caring. Noting could compare to the pain she felt inside. She tripped over a root, crashing winded to the floor, chocking sobs breaking the quiet hush that now settled. She looked to the sticks and stones before her. This made her remember the rhyme all children know.

"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but your words will never hurt me"

Just as all kids knew it, they also knew it was a lie. Yes sticks and stones could hurt, but words could destroy you. Like a small child. Not knowing the full extent of its malice calls a child fat, or a crybaby. The intent is still the same. Child or adult, is to cause pain, it's just the words changing as you grow. They become more insulting, more cutting. Like the dull knife that you use as a child to cut play d'oh has been sharpened and driven in your heart. But that is not the worst. The worst is the word, the blade laced with poison. The poison of truth. The little half-truth that makes you begin to think they are right.

Bill had struck her with such a blade; she had begun to think, seeing the half-truths in his words. All she seemed to do was cause pain, make her mother cry, and make Mickey sad. Never mind she had saved the soul of an alien, the last of a species. Never mind she had made a man, a man who would have conned you out of your cloths, look at his life and begin to turn it into something honest. Never mind the hundreds of worlds she had helped to save by their side. Nothing like that mattered. All that mattered was that she caused pain. And of course this made her pull at the tapestry that was her soul here. Her argument with the Doctor when they had gone back to see her dad. The trouble bringing Adam along had caused. She began to think less of herself more and more.

She looked over at the hiss, and rustling. There was George. He was the Tardis's resident man eating plant. Either it really did just eat men, or it really liked Rose. She suspected the latter. He looked like a giant Venus flytrap with eyes. He could walk about, thick lianas supporting him like four feet, making him move spider like. He had two thinner lianas like arms. All were covered with leaves, making him rustle. He nudged Rose's hand gently, trying to avoid the cut she had all over from running blindly, some were quite deep and still bleeding onto the ground. She didn't acknowledge him. He crooned, more like a gurgle. But he still got no response. He curled up round her as if to give warmth and just sad crooning in her ear. It was then she started to sing, nose blocked by tears and hardly any volume to her voice.

"Please, please forgive me. But I won't be home again,

Maybe someday you'll wake up. And barely conscious you'll say to no one,

Isn't some one missing?

Isn't someone missing me?"

The Doctor was so beyond mad, he couldn't think of a word for it. Jack and himself had listened to the phone conversation…twice. Not believing it the first time. How dare that stuck up, righteous bastard say that to Rose? With fury in his eyes the likes when he looked at Cassandra on platform one. He had to find her; she couldn't believe what her Uncle had said. But the fact she was nowhere to be seen and that the Tardis was shouting at him to find her. Made him wonder if she did. He left Jack to pilot the Tardis to Dracon 4 it used to be an outpost for a race that died in the time war. The place was beautiful. Sapphire seas and white beaches. Most of all completely deserted and safe. They all needed a holiday.

He found himself outside the door that led to the garden. It was wide open. He stepped in, seeing her tracks in the earth below. He walked on, seeing broken twigs and plants. He became more alarmed at the sight of blood. He began to run. Images playing through his head, more terrifying than the rest. Had something attacked her? Then he stopped dead. This new thought chilling him to the core. Was she hurting herself? It was now he heard her voice carrying through the brush to him. The voice in sorrowful lament. He recognized the song from the Band Evanescence. It was called Missing. About a girl thinking no one would miss her if she died. He walked into what was almost a cave; except it was made by plants not rock. The artificial sunlight filtering through the leaves to dance about her from. A form that looked utterly broken. He nearly cried at the sight. This wasn't his Rose.

George rustled in anger at his approach. Protecting Rose from everything it seems.

"Down George. I won't hurt her. You know that" he said soothingly to the plant. It backed of from Rose so the Doctor could get closer. "Good boy. Why don't you go and have some stakes." George scuttled away with one last croon to Rose. The Doctor sat down beside her, shocked by her lack of acknowledgement to him.

"Rose.." nothing "Rose?" he gently stroked her cheek. Se recoiled, nearly jumping half a mile. "Calm down Rose, it's me"

"What you doing here?"

"Me and Jack missed you"

"No you didn't" she replied in a small voice

"Of course we did, how could you leave me alone to fend off his advances?" She didn't even smile, no comeback, no nothing. "Come on Rose, your Uncle is wrong, you can't believe him" well that got a reaction. Not one he was hoping for, but anger was better than nothing.

"How you know what he said" her eyes in fiery fury.

"The Tardis recorded it, then played it back to me and Jack"

"You mean Jack heard as well? What Gives the Tardis the bloody right to record my Phone conversations so you two can have a laugh.

"We weren't laughing" his own anger rising to meet hers

"Bet you were, lets all laugh at the stupid ape, great entertainment she is, the worthless piece if meat." Tears were running down her face again he moved forward to embrace her, but she beat at his chest with her fists, making them bleed again.

"Rose Your hands! Come here" he caught her wrists as she tried to get away. Telling him to stop wasting his time. But he pulled her flush to him, holding on to her tightly.

"Now you listen to me Rose Tyler. You are not worthless; you have saved yours and other worlds more than I can count. You have faced death and smiled in its face. You are selfless and you are worth more than all the humans on the planet."

"No I'm not"

"You are to me" he spoke softly into her blonde hair, she stilled. Then leaned back so she could look into his eyes

"Why? I'm just a dumb shop girl"

"You saved me from the Autons, you look at everything with the will to learn. Not rejecting things that are different. But most of all you saved my soul. After the time war I didn't want to go on, I jumped into one death situation to another. I couldn't let myself give up, but I put myself in situations that were harder to get out of. But when I saw you in Hendricks. And you took the whole thing in, shocked yeah. But wanting to know more. It made me think, then when you came with me, seeing your face as you came to new planets. New places. It was like I was seeing it for the first time too. I didn't see all the death and destruction. I saw life and knowledge. Thanks to you." Rose was shocked, he had never talked this openly about the time war, about himself "you Rose Tyler are fantastic" she clung to him, his words breaking through the sorrow, she cried as she held him, feeling home, feeling worth something. Then tiredness crept upon her, he must have felt it cause he lay them on their backs. Looking through the leaves. He sat up on his elbow looking at her.

"You still got me sonic screwdriver?" she reached down to pull it out her right pocket, hissing in pain as she grazed the cuts on her hand. He took the screwdriver from her, and then gently took one hand in his own. He played the Sonic screwdriver over the cuts, and Rose felt the pain recede to nothing. He repeated that action on the other hand, then placed the Screwdriver back in his pocket. He then lay down next to Rose; she was half asleep and cuddled up to him. He wrapped one arm around her as her head came to rest on his chest. She giggled.

"What?"

"Sounds like you got a conga going on in there"

"That's what you get with two hearts"

"Cool" she muttered. He wasn't even sure she actually heard him say two hearts. He let her rest, the Tardis filtering love and comfort to Rose as she slept.

Several hours later, the Doctor still lay with Rose, when he heard the voice of Jack

"Down George…don't you dare….(snap)…..watch it George….no" this ended with the garden door slamming shut. The Doctor smiled.

"Good boy"

_"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but the Doctor will always save me"_

THE END

KITG: ok, that turned out longer than expected. Obviously the Song was Blue (da ba dee) by Eiffel 65, also "missing" crept in there by Evanescence. Well you've obviously read to get to here. So please review.

See you in time: )


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